I think I’m becoming a canning maniac!  Gosh, I had fun today.  I’m getting the hang of how to can foods efficiently.

Here’s what I did today:

– cherries, 7 quarts, 2 pints

– plum jam, 4- 1/2 pints

– cherry jelly, 7 pints, 2- 1/2 pints

– ground meat, 4 pints

– spaghetti meat sauce, 6 quarts

The cherries were on sale for $1.99 lb, and true to my motto, I buy a lot of something when it’s on sale.  The kids de-stemmed them, and then puctured each one with sterilized needles, to prevent them from bursting.  My 7 year old daughter did most of the actual canning work, I just took the hot sterilized jars out for her to fill, and then put them back in the canner when they were full. 

When we prepared the cherries for canning, we had to bring them to a boil with some water in the pot.  The water became cherry juice, and rather than throw it away, I thought I could make jelly from it.  So I googled for cherry jelly recipes, and then googled again more specifically for one that used liquid pectin.  (Pectin is the ingredient that helps it gel, and I bought four boxes of it for .50 each about 18 months ago, thinking it would be a good thing to have.  It just took me longer to get around to it than I expected.  :))  For the cost of the sugar and pectin (under $3), we now have 18 pints of jelly. 

The plums were on the reduced rack for .49 lb.  I don’t usually buy soft fruit, because I won’t eat it.  But I thought it would be just right for jam, so that’s what I used it for.  I was going to make this with my 6 year old son, but he was moving very slowly and I saw that he was more motivated to do something else right then.  So he mixed the jam while it was cooking, but was around to only fill one of the four jars. The kids told me on Sunday that they don’t want me to buy store jams or jellies anymore (not that I buy them frequently anyway), since the homemade mulberry jam was so good that it’s the only thing they want to eat.  Now they’ll have a couple more homemade flavors to enjoy.  🙂

The ground meat was on sale for 3.49 lb.  Yes, I know that’s not incredibly cheap, but I don’t expect that kosher meat is going to go lower than that anymore, so I bought 8 family packs of it yesterday, each about 3 pounds.  I had my 9 year old son seperate three of the packs into smaller chunks, so that there are 12 individually wrapped packages now in the freezer.  This way I can use the amount I want without having to defrost a big package.  Three of the packages (9 lb) I cooked as crumbles.  This is how I use most of my ground meat, since it enhances a lot of dishes without having to use a lot of it.  I used chicken broth that was in the fridge as the liquid to cover it with, since it will hold the flavor well and doesn’t change the look of it, like tomato sauce would.  (Water, broth, and tomato juice are the three things recommended to use.)  That was the last thing I canned so I only had room for 4 pints in the canner, but tomorrow I’ll can up the rest.  Now it’s shelf stable and ready to be used, my own fast food!

The other 6 lb of meat I cooked up with onions, garlic, tomato sauce and paste, and seasonings, including some freshly picked oregano from the garden, to make a hearty spaghetti sauce.  Served heated over some rice (I rarely serve pasta) or spaghetti squash it will make a tasty dinner.  After canning 6 quarts, I have an additional container in the fridge to use for dinner tomorrow night.

My kitchen counter is filled with all of these jars, since they have to cool for about twelve hours before they are moved.  So far it looks like everything sealed properly except for one quart of cherries, which I popped into the fridge and will use sometime soon.  (That’s the chance you take when you let a 7 year old be responsible for it- the lid wasn’t initially screwed on securely before it was placed into the canner – but if you don’t give kids a chance to learn, which includes making mistakes, then they’ll never know how to do any more in the future than they do today.)

I looked up the state fair guidelines for entries a couple of nights ago, and we’ll be able to enter any and all of these that we want in the food preservation section of the fair.  I told my kids that anything they help with can be entered under their name (the only difference it makes is that they get the prize money if it wins a ribbon instead of me). 

My older girls were active in 4H for several years and our summers used to be very busy with them getting ready for the county and then state fair, but we haven’t been involved for a couple of years.  I think this will be nice for the 9, 7, and 6 year olds, and it won’t be nearly as busy as it used to be (the girls then entered sheep and chicken shows, sewing, baked goods of all varieties….).  We’re also going to start baking some things for the fair during our time in the kitchen, and since I’ve learned from the past, we’ll just freeze what they bake now instead of baking everything fresh for three days solid in the heat of August. 🙂

Avivah